Archive for Flames

It must suck to be the Flames right now. They came into the season as the favorite to win the Northwest Division since they added Jay Bouwmeester in the offseason. They held onto that for a while, before completely dropping off a cliff through the new year and up to the Olympics. Now, they’re out of the playoffs for the first time since their Cup Final run in 2003-04. They traded last season’s deadline acquistion, Olli Jokinen; they traded the player they labeled the future of the team in Phaneuf; and they have a very thin system with not many big prospects.

Now, TSN poses this question to the hockey world:

Which Alberta team needs the biggest shakeup this offseason?

62% of voters say the Flames need it more than the last place Edmonton Oilers. But then again, the Oilers have players like Hemsky, Gagner, Cogliano, Eberle, Paajarvi-Svensson annnnnnnnnnd (likely) the 1st overall pick in this year’s draft.

Bob McKenzie is reporting that the deal between Calgary and the Rangers that would send Jokinen and Prust to New York for Kotalik and Higgins is currently on hold. Supposedly, Calgary backed out late last night and wants to wait until after their game against the Flyers tonight.

There were multiple instances in which I said I thought Jokinen would head to the Rangers, although I did expect it to be as a UFA, not during this season. In other news, how the fuck does Glen Sather still have his job. Pulling off this trade would add two more failures to the giant list of disappointing players he has brought in over his tenure. Chrsi Higgins was acquired in the deal that sent Scott Gomez to Montreal, and has been pretty non-existent all season long. Kotalik on the other hand, wore out his welcome in Buffalo, sucked in Edmonton, but for some reason thought that signing him to a three year, $9 million deal would be beneficial. All it did was add to the serious erection he must have for uninterested Czech players. Seriously, which of these players have done anything special in their time in New York:

Prospal (39 pts in 49 games)

Kotalik (22 pts in 44 games)

Rozsival ( 22 pts in 374 games) for 4 years, $20 million

Prucha (113 pts in 237 games)

Straka (187 in 224 games)

Malik (aside from his shootout goal)

Rachunek (26 pts in 66 games)

Rucinsky (110 pts in 132 games over three separate stops)

Sykora (31 pts in 40 games)

Holik (91 pts in 146 games for a 5 year, $45 million contract)

Jagr was left off of this list because he had some pretty good SEASONS in New York, 319 points in 277 games. But this was only a list of Czech players. Think about all of the other failed experiments that they have went through under Sather; Lindros, Redden, Bure, Fleury, Drury and Gomez’s monster contracts.

And in his ten year reign as the GM, the Rangers have only made the playoffs four times. Now although that has been the past four season, which may seem like progress after missing the playoffs for the first six, they have only won two series over that time and have yet to move past the second round. How is he still a GM when you have good men like Dale Talon being dropped off the cliff right when things start going well in Chicago.

I turned this from a blog about how I am awesome to one about how much Sather sucks. If you could bet on where players will end up this offseason, put money on at least one of Kubina, Zidlicky or Lang to end up in New York.

Brian Burke has definitely had enough. It has been a long, long time since a Leafs actually made me excited for the future. Sure, they are giving up a lot of players, but Phaneuf is still very young and has a lot of potential, as does 6′ 6″ Keith Aulie. So in total:

Coming

Dion Phaneuf

Keith Aulie

Fredrik Sjostrom

JS Giguere

Going

Matt Stajan

Niklas Hagman

Jamal Mayers

Ian White

Vesa Toskala

JASON BLAKE

Jason Blake has now been added to the Giguere deal. Wow…..they just moved six players in one day. When was the last time that happened? The only player I will miss is White; he is a RFA at the end of the season. Hagman was good, but one of the only bargaining chips the team has, so he had to go. Stajan was just on the Leafs at the wrong time. On any other team (like Calgary), he would be a valuable second line centre. On the Leafs, he was pushed into the number one centre role and expected to perform at that pace. Not going to happen with him. Thank god Jason Blake is gone. What a waste of cap room!